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Plastic Characterisation, Processing & Recycling

Today, it is quite impossible to imagine a world without plastics. In Europe 58 million tonnes are produced each year! But it is only just over one hundred years ago, in 1907 to be precise, that Leo Baekelandt, a Belgian scientist living in New York, invented the so-called Bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic. The full explosion of plastic production and commercialisation had to wait until the 1950's.

The specific properties of plastics including ease of forming, light weight, strength, functionality, recyclability and corrosion resistance, are important drivers for the increasing use of plastics.

But what are plastics?

Plastic is a material consisting of any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic compounds that are malleable and that can be moulded into solid objects. They are most frequently made from petrochemicals, however, more and more plastics are now being made from renewable and/or recycled materials.

The product's success however also resulted in a worldwide waste issue, with plastic polluted oceans, and plastic debris encountered in the most remote and desolate places on earth, making recycling a very important theme for the plastic processing industry as well.